Bank Holiday Weekend

Mick snatched the tray of rashers from under the grill in the nick of time. His heart sank as he scanned the growing pile of breakfast dockets on the order board. Still no sign of the two breakfast cooks. Peg dashed in with yet another breakfast order. ‘Where the devil is everyone?’ he called over his shoulder. His wife glared at him as she dumped the burnt contents of the toaster in the bin. ‘The dutch anglers on table six are going to go berserk if they don’t get their fries soon’ she snapped 'and they need six packed luncheons as well. The yanks on table eight are getting a bit restless too!’she called back as she disappeared through the restaurant door.

The first few weeks of the season had gone smoothly in Mick’s Harbour Hotel. ’Too smoothly’ Mick remarked uneasily to his wife Peg. Jean Michel, the new French chef, was adapting well to local conditions. “It ees not like Paris” he shrugged, with a touch of gallic arrogance. Your Irish taste is, how you say it, tres conservative but I think your guests now appreciate good cuisine, no?” He had a point. Numbers were definitely well up on previous years. They were also getting loads of compliments. ‘Won´t be too many bouquets this morning though’ Mick sighed ruefully as he scraped the burnt scrambled egg from the end of the saucepan. “Where the hell are all the staff?”
ooOoo

“Is that you Boss?”. David´s voice sounded strained over the phone. “I´m afraid there´s been a bit of an accident. Their young assistant manager was calling from the regional hospital. ‘A late night party’ he added sheepishly. ‘ A housewarming. One of the girls moved into a new flat’. He hesitated. ‘I thought it would be good for morale if I went along’. It transpired that at five o´clock in the morning, someone suggested that they drive to a local beach for a breath of fresh air. “ Parfait!" Jean Michel exclaimed. “we will pick beautiful leetle mussels and I will cook you all Moules Mariniere for ze breakfast", he called staggering to his feet . ‘alors, Vive la France! Come mes enfants, follow me to the beach’ he yelled dramatically, plonking an empty Pastis bottle on the table and dashing out the door with the enthusiastic party-goers following in his wake.

Five minutes later his high powered Renault failed to make the corner at the end of the Pier Road and hit the harbor wall at high speed. The outcome could have been worse. Several cars had ended up in the tide in recent years. But it was bad enough. The ten passengers packed tightly into the car had suffered a range of injuries. Jean Michel´s ankle was broken, his left arm was fractured in several places and his face was badly cut. The new breakfast cook would wear a neck brace for months to come. She had only joined the staff the previous day, fresh from Hotel school as a summer placement. ‘How am I going to explain this to her parents?’ Mick asked Peg desperately. ‘And how are we going to manage for staff?’ Peg replied. Half of them were in hospital and the busiest bank holiday weekend of the year was only days away.......

ooOoo

‘OK folks, we may not have the quantity, but we sure have the quality’, Mick smiled bravely as he looked around the staff room – at all seven of them. Eight were still on the sick list. Mick´s fellow Hoteliers in the town had been sympathetic but nobody had staff to spare. ‘But Mick, the Hotel is booked solid and we´ve seventy-five booked for dinner on Saturday night’. It took a lot to knock a feather out of Dilly, their old restaurant supervisor, but this time she certainly sounded worried. Mick had cajoled her to come out of retirement and help out for a few days . ´How on earth are we going to manage at all?’ she added despairingly.

ooOoo

The mini-bus screeched to a halt at the back door of the Hotel at 5pm on Friday evening. Mick´s sister Rose and six of her fellow nurses from the city-centre hospital dashed into the kitchen where Mick and Peg waited anxiously. ‘Seven nurses in exchange for eight staff. My sister could always be called on in a crisis’ Mick grinned. He was a past master at ‘on the job training’ and now he put his plan into action. A one hour crash course in waiting and bar-tending followed. Two nurses were swiftly dispatched to the dining room into Dilly´s safe pair of hands; two to the bar and Peg took the other two up house.

Jean Michel hobbled in at the eleventh hour. ‘ I cannot cook, monsieur’, he grinned ‘ but I can direct’. And so he did – magnificently- throughout the entire weekend. Instructions were issued imperiously in all directions as he sat majestically on a bar stool in the middle of the kitchen directing operations. The hundred covers record was broken that Saturday night without the receipt of a single complaint.

ooOoo

‘It´s been a great weekend Mick’, Peg looked up from her calculator as she prepared the bank lodgement the following Tuesday morning. ‘The girls were terrific and Jean Michel was a gem. No matter what, things will never seem quite so bad again’.

They were, but that´s a story for another day…….

THE END